I bought a domain for us to use to hide ugly staging URL's (like what Azure gives you for staging).

I pretty exlusively only buy domains from MyDomain.com, but I might have bought this one from NetworkSolutions.com as a test (as we had a client having trouble with them, we wanted to walk their footsteps).

Now when I look for this domain it is with neither host. When I WHOIS this domain it says that it's owned by "Click and Name"... I went to clickandname.com and this is definately not a site I have ever visited before.

The domain is still active for me and the ICANN info still points to me. I even got renewal notifications from Click and Name to renew, but these emails don't point me to any site. Any help before I approach these guys (that I don't trust)?

Edit:

I didn't give a great timeline of this... I would have bought this about 10 months ago, and I've now started getting these renewals from a company I know I didn't register with. Of which, the WHOIS inforation says these guys own my domain. This is why I don't quite remember who I registered this with. I've looked back through invoices to no avail.

2 Answers
2

There exists a business model (I, among others, would call it very dodgy, just short of fraud) where registrars send out letters that look very much like renewal notices for domains that they do NOT handle.

When you reply to these notices (which are confusingly similar to regular renewals if you don't read them carefully) that is legally interpreted as a request for them to take over the domain. So suddenly, the domain is transferred to them and they are in control of it.

Domain Registry of Canada is notorious for doing such a thing. It's made worse, IMNSHO, by the fact that if you don't look carefully, you may mistake it for a governmental organization.

It sounds like this is what happened to you. What you should do is approach your preferred reseller, have them transfer the domain back to them and lock it.

Yeah, I had wondered if this had happened, but I so rarely deal w/ this domain that I can't say I've ever clicked on anything related to this domain... Guess that's why you pay for the anonymous option :)
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RikonAug 4 '11 at 14:30

1

Domain registry of America does the same to me. 35 USD a year....
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JacobAug 4 '11 at 16:25

I've gotten to the point where I take that Domain Registry of America letter and don't even open it - rip it up and throw it away! They're a bunch of lousy ne're-do-wells!
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David WAug 4 '11 at 17:17

I think they're on to you (and me, for that matter), @David -- I got a letter from DRoA just the other day that was in a blank envelope, so I didn't know to tear it up and throw it away until I already had it opened!
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KromeyAug 4 '11 at 18:56

This is likely what happened, but they happened to snag a domain that I didn't use so I didn't catch this...
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RikonAug 4 '11 at 20:59

Perhaps you registered thru your hosting provider? For example Dreamhost does there own registrations?

If not I'd suggest a phone call to MyDomain.com and to netsol.com as well as any other regisrty you mat have used. They maybe able to explain what happened. If its only be 10 months its not likly it expired and someone else renewed it.

what I mean is if you whois netsol.com its registered by netsol, mydomain by mydomain, godaddy.com by godaddy.... clickandname.com registrar is tucows which leads me to belive they are not a registrar?
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AlanAug 4 '11 at 20:05